Gentle
by gammameta
Summary: Rogue is imprisoned in a cell, and she doesn't take it very well, poor thing.  Dark and unhappy.


**A/N: **_I want to thank my beta, Valeria, for her help on this fic. The idea and most of the text came to me months ago, and at the time it seemed...silly, melodramatic, and very, very dark. Not so much what happens to Rogue as what Rogue thinks. I never thought I'd post. But something nagged at me about this fic, and Valeria encouraged and supported me. Here it is. She is responsible for all those little details that make it work. Thanks, hon._

_This fic is dark and unhappy and without a happy ending. Daisies, rainbows, and frolicking unicorns - look elsewhere._**  
**

**Gentle**

The brick on the side by the head of her bed had a crack in it. It looked cold, and it felt damp, and the left side stuck out slightly more than the right. She used to touch it, but she didn't have to anymore. She knew it all.

She didn't know how long she had been in this cell. It had gotten to the point she didn't care. Or rather, it wouldn't have mattered if she cared. So she didn't.

She'd been dumped here. Her first memories were of being dumped, shoeless, on the slightly damp floor in nothing but a cotton shift. Her feet had made a soft scupping sound as they'd dragged her to the center of the room and dropped her.

Then there'd been the loud thunk of the bars being closed, the echo up and down the gated hall. She'd heard the slight shifting and murmur of other residents in blind cells either side of her and the clomp as the guards retreated. Cool air had eddied around her bare neck and cropped head. Continuous, buzzing light slanted in.

Those were her first memories of here – now - when. Everything could be divided into 'before' or 'after'. She remembered before. Sleeping at Xavier's, ducking into her own room after saying good night to Bobby, ignoring Jubilee's knowing smirk as she wasn't kissed good night. She still had her Algebra 3 homework for the next day.

Now she was after - here. That's all she could say – now. Time had lost its meaning.

It wasn't bad, and that had been the first surprise. She was unhurt. Unharmed. She was fed. Sometimes she woke to find herself sprayed and washed, an antiseptic smell. She grew to like it – a change from her own sour, pasty odor.

She was taken. Who knew how often? Once a day? But she had no memories of that, either.

The first time, a single guard came in, deadened voice, wooden expression. She'd been scared, tried to ask what was going on. She'd struggled stupidly, ineffectually as he'd hauled her in one-handed, still yammering questions, trying to get him to know her, when he'd stabbed the syringe in her thigh.

She woke later alone in her cell with a feeling of heaviness and lethargy. Still unharmed, still whole. She'd been shaking, vomited, at the idea of what they hadn't done.

The second time she'd fought harder. She had to know, couldn't bear being dragged off again. Terrified, thinking to use her skin, she'd lunged for the man in the uniform, scrabbling for his eyes, hoping in vain to find some way beneath his gloves, around his boots and socks, or beneath his collar. But she'd found no way in past his deadened expression and harsh voice. "Be quiet." She'd felt a prick of a needle, paralyzing coldness, the echo of her shriek on the air.

She woke up alone again, even neatly stowed, on her bed. It happened again and again. Every time yanked away and drugged, every time returned unscathed. Fighting was in vain. Did she even want to know anyway? After a time…she knew she didn't. And maybe it wasn't bad…after all.

She stopped fighting. Lay docile on her bed, waiting, a stringless puppet waiting to be played. Clomp, thunk, i prick /i …and then - back. She learned to ignore it, even. Maybe that was wise; it wasn't brave. Besides, it broke up the day.

Her day was the cell. Encompassed all her memories and knowledge. She had used to try and fill the day. She'd yelled up and down the corridor. Tried to engage others in neighboring cells. That had elicited a few grumbles, some shouting - 'Girl! i Girl/i ', absolute silence from the guards. She'd tried talking to herself, pacing.

She tried studying, plotting, planning. Escape. She was a smart girl: think. What did she know? Cells – how many? Around eighteen, twenty? A two-guard rotation. Water and grey bread and some sort of gummy cake served once a day. A climate-controlled cell block that could be anywhere in North America. Steel bars, seven finger's breadth apart and two finger breadths thick. Windowless cement blocks. She recognized eight of the guards. She knew the distinct voices of the cellmates on either side. She knew the different murmur and clip of guards when they were going to drag someone away rather than just make rounds. Routinized. Scrutinized. She knew it all.

But knowing that didn't help her any. Thinking that way was driving her nuts. The same uniforms, the same guards, the same opportunities she couldn't seem to use, could find no way around. No escape, no getting out. Just endure. Endure time. Because after a while, that was all there was.

She had time to remember moments she was sure she'd forgotten: the clink of ice as her mother made lemonade; the stirs and coughs of the audience at her sister's nativity play; the day she and her next door neighbor Aaron's cousin had snuck down to the creek when they'd told everyone they were at the park; the sparkly shoelaces on Kitty's second set of sneakers.

She played games. Eye spy had really palled after the first twenty minutes – a game for two anyway. Word games. Mnemonics and songs. My Very Educated Mother Just Baked Us Nine Pizza pies. Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of Saint Clement's. 144 169 196 225…

She had time to remember the moments that were best forgotten: the day, three months after running away, she'd been unceremoniously dumped at the side of the road and suddenly cried for her mother, knowing she couldn't go back; Bobby passing her an ice rose and trying to include her later in a game; the train. Logan had promised to take care of her…before Magneto came.

She didn't want to think about it, about them, about time passing for them, as it did for her. Bobby needing another haircut or Kitty driving herself too hard to get another 'A'. How many times had Logan refueled Cyke's bike? How many towns? She couldn't think about that, wonder if they missed her, if they were worried. Her mother, did she - ? Maybe Bobby already had another girlfriend by now. She didn't think about it. Only how to get through it. This moment. Exhausting every memory, every moment. Until there was nothing left. Only now.

Time passed. Like watching glass flow. Like watching flame burn. Sometimes it was soft and depthless, adrift in a fine snow of sand. Grain upon grain of desert, never-ending, ever-growing, never changing, and small and soft and more to the horizon. A muted call, prick, she was snapped away. Buried and back again. No change. But Time had passed, and oh so quickly, so that she couldn't sink her fingers in, couldn't touch it or feel it…couldn't make it stay.

Sometimes time hung suspended, sticky like molasses, stretched out, reverberating, and clanging, CLANGING loudly, beating in her throat, and marking time in her ear drums and pulsing red before dry eyes. The beat would dance faster and faster, and she knew that however fast it beat, for however long it went, no time had passed, none, that time waited brimful to pour more into her endlessly, that she'd been given a teaspoon with which to move the ocean.

Time had no end or beginning or quantity. No matter how furiously you gripped it, no matter how endlessly you slogged it away.

There were times she coped by focusing hard, eyes shut tightly, nails digging into her palms, on the wish for one change – it could be small. Just one thing that she hadn't thought of already. Maybe she could walk down the hallway before the drug overpowered her. Maybe a different guard, maybe wearing a different pair of socks. Maybe she could smell a different antiseptic smell or be served a different meal. Something more or something less. She'd be quiet and good, and she just wanted to see…something…anything.

She had this brick and she had this bed. Eventually, that's where she spent her days. Or weeks, months, however long. On her side, curled up and facing the wall, eyes on her brick. She had the cell, but she knew it already. She could poke her nose out the rail and eye up and down the corridor, but what more could she see? Her world was as big or as small as she made it, and the brick was every bit as large as her cell, as her mind.

That oppressive thought had weighed her down for a long time, pressed her into the bed, into the brick in a way much less like choice. Was this it? Was this life? It wasn't like she couldn't cope. It wasn't like it was bad or that bad at all. Mostly, she could cope…with today. She could cope with tomorrow. But she forced herself to ask: could she cope with ten days? Twenty? She was sorry to say she could. How about thirty? A year? Forty years? How long.

When it sounded like that, brick became unbearable. Time was unbearable. Her wall, her bed. It wasn't so much that she couldn't bear this as that she couldn't bear indefinitely.

Lackadaisically, she'd thrown an eye around her room, searching what she knew already. She had a bucket for waste. She got water. She could try and drown herself, she supposed. One morning she did try. Her head in the bucket, ass in the air, nose and lips pressed down firmly in the 2" of water she'd been able to create from her small water allotment. She'd decided against taking a leak first.

It hadn't worked. She'd held her breath, blinking, waiting, ended up spluttering. She was too awake, too feeling, it was too different: the water on her lips, the bubbles tickling her nose, the scrape of her chin, the filth of the pail. She'd never gotten near the point of passing out or inhaling any of it. She'd only succeeded in hacking great fetid gobs of water everywhere, making a snotty mess of her surroundings, wiping moisture miserably on her shift. Dirty, outside and in.

She hadn't tried again. The idea of dying that way had seemed…silly. Undignified. Wretchedly stupid and more desperate than she was, and she didn't want to be found that way – flashing the guards in her short shift, sprawled out and drowned in 500mL of water pooled in the bottom of her waste bucket. She was surprised to learn she actually cared.

But it wasn't like there were a lot of options. No weapons. The only textile was her t-shaped shift. She'd once contemplated choking herself on it – ripping and braiding and tying it round her neck, the other end to one of the bars. Stretching out to the point of passing out and then just not…moving, hopefully. But the shift was short. She wasn't strong enough to tear the cloth. It hadn't seams even. And it wasn't long enough or wide enough or quite enough to form a noose and rope. Every time she pressed on her neck until she passed out, she woke up again…with a headache.

The only other weapon was herself. She had nails. She had teeth. She could tear herself open, gnaw away chunks of her wrist away until she was raw and bleeding, There was a cement floor, for that matter. She could bash her brains open. She could stand on the bed and dive headfirst for the floor, or merely run hard and fast for the opposite wall. It wouldn't be that hard.

Her arm flopped down.

She knew she wouldn't. It wasn't that she feared death. She didn't even fear life. She didn't, necessarily, mind pain. But everything of that kind seemed to require such effort. Will. More than she could summon. She wasn't Logan. Not an X-man. Not heroic or brave. She hadn't the strength required to change her position or accept it. She hadn't any life to kill herself with.

She was weak and exhausted, doing nothing. It was painful to realize she couldn't care about even her own death enough. Until pain became too much to feel, too.

At some point, she stopped eating. It wasn't a conscious thing. Maybe she'd been doing it for days. That, too, was too much of an effort. Breathing and eating and staring, blinking, were so utterly fatiguing she spent her time dumbly pondering ways not to do them anymore. Her arms were heavy. Chewing seemed a boring, interminable task. Crumbs cut jagged holes in dry gums. She didn't care if she swallowed.

She lay there. Her brick. The crack. Flopped. And at some point she noticed, the wound a sore irritant, that they'd started feeding her intravenously anyway. It all seemed so pointless.

She didn't care. It was her and the wall. And time. Blessed prick of the needle. Blessed unending unchangingness dragging on. Out. It was all so much the same.

Perhaps that's why she didn't notice the changes in the beginning. It was all too late. Too pointless now.

She was pretty sure the dynamics of the place changed first. The vibe. The guards were louder and less professional. Some of the other inmates rowdier. All were easy to ignore.

Not so easy to ignore when the prick of the needle didn't end with her waking in the same place.

"The sedative is wearing off," said a distant voice. Maybe. She felt muzzy. "Can't we give a larger dose?

"We're running out." A pause, crisp crackle of plastic. "This one seems pretty weak and harmless. Are you sure you want to waste it?"

She opened her eyes dimly, found herself stretched out on a table. She was bathed in white. Bright light. All she knew.

The supercilious voice doubted again. "Seems to be. But the chart says that there's the potential it can absorb other mutants' powers."

"That was the theory. Think it must have been wrong. We've never seen any evidence of augmentation."

Snap of a clipboard. "So you think it's safe to conduct disposal ops while it's awake?"

"That's what I'm saying."

A sigh. "Roll the first one in here. How many we have today? Six?"

Clatter of cheap wheels. She felt a trolley bump hers, and she blinked stupidly to see young, frightened eyes, clapping teeth. And skin. Lots of pale vulnerable skin, and her own hand maneuvered by medical-suited technicians until it hung suspended over a shoulder. Ratty, ash blond hair, full body trembling. The girl had a nose like her sister's.

Iciness gripped Rogue's throat, terror swept her anew. She turned away, felt the purple veins rise – way, way too familiar. She shuddered as she felt the pressure, the groaning weight of a soul collapsing on hers. No! Please! Stop!

It was done. The girl, grey, was rolled away.

Next.

More grey skin.

A gawky teen with a large Adam's apple.  
A babbling girl with a lisp.  
A lumpish lady covered in bruises.  
An old man with a mantra: Don't forget. Don't forget.  
A child, pugnacious, unafraid.

Then it was over and efficient, and she was hollowly restored to her room by bruising, distracted guards. She collapsed in a rush of warmth, grateful familiarity. Her cell, her bed. The cracked brick. She traced. She nearly loved it. She'd stay forever. She wished she could stay just here instead.

She didn't care that she was a murderer. An executioner. To learn that when she was unconscious, she'd been taking lives. Her life in the cell was the same as ever. She remained as weak as ever. The only difference now was the novelty.

Without drugs, she experienced them now - people rushing in. Most were like her – exhausted, a little afraid, desperately seeking something. Some of them ready to die. Others stupefied, drugged. Others kicking and determined. Some mad.

Knowing them was new, the experiences a shock. Their dying quickly became the only thing she could remember, the only part of her day. She couldn't take their dying, their death every day on top of hers. She hadn't the strength to face all of their living when she had to face her own life, too. Accumulated bodies and kicking psyches. They seeped through her fingers, dribbled out her brain, and she let them go. Thankfully.

And in her cell, with her brick, she was more exhausted, more tired, less and less herself than she had ever been. Not caring had becoming not coping. She couldn't care about them, even though she cried. She wouldn't remember them. She couldn't remember a time she'd cared about herself.

And it was getting worse. More and more each day.

She was in a new room. A brighter room. For the first time, she heard the babble of many people. They deposited her on a bed, and her head lolled back on the covers. She left it there tiredly. The ceiling was different.

Tile. Huh. Very institutional. Fluorescent lighting. She blinked uneasily into it. Buzzing. One tube was loose. She found it oddly soothing.

"Quickly, people. Come on." A new briskness in the air, an instability almost. "Get 'em lined up. Not much time. Gotta get rid of 'em all." They meant she had to.

Louder voices like a crowd, the sound of a struggle, and a few blows rose above the murmur. They must have run out of sedative altogether. Maybe a raid was coming. The lab was getting shut down. Maybe this was the end. She felt the painful stirrings of emotion, gratitude, and her dry lips moved. If it was, it'd be such blessed relief.

Her eyes were tearing, her vision slurring Van Gogh-like against the halogen light. She heard the bustling as gloved technicians maneuvered around her. "Agitators first." She never struggled. They hadn't even bothered to restrain her this time.

So she didn't notice until she heard the growl.

"Logan." Her voice was a croak from lack of use, and her face felt stiff and tight, but she was smiling. Disbelief. Trembling pleasure. Too much feeling all at once. She never thought she'd see him again.

He was agitated, though, snarling, red-faced, the veins in his neck popping. God, he was beautiful. But he ceased, his nostrils quivering, anger and testosterone still behind his eyes, and then the burn died, an emotion like anguish replacing it.

"Marie—" He sounded so sad to see her. "I'm so sorry." He began to struggle even more against his restraints, and she felt the technicians moving around them, between their beds, moving them irresistibly closer.

"Marie. Marie," he seemed so desperate to establish that, eyes darting up and around the room then back again. "We tried to find you. I was trying to get you out."

Her slow mind dribbled past his presence to why he was here. Why they both were. His skin as bare as hers. Her mind frizzled along long-dormant paths, flashing memories of other moments like this – when he had saved her, and she – hadn't. She flexed feebly and felt a technician's grip, was easily overcome. She didn't think she had the strength. And after – after…he would remain, with her, as he had before, as none of the others had.

"Do you want to die?" she asked him as somebody strapped her hand down firmly now. For the first time, she felt guilt. She might not have cared, but she was sure the others had. Or their friends had. Someone had or would. She cared that Logan would. She should have cared for them all.

He swallowed. "Darlin'." It was so soft, ashamed almost.

The technicians began their final preparations. "Subject Wolverine…"

"NO! FUCK you! Not to her!" The rest of his invectives sounded garbled, frantic. He scrabbled as far back as he could in his restraints, and she could hear the squish as mutilated himself on the adamantium cuffs when he tried to pop his claws. "Not like this. Find another way!" He was almost speaking to her.

His expression was desperate, his chest heaving, and limbs rigid. He was resisting. He looked so vital over there, slick with sweat, muscles rippling, pulse hammering at his throat. Hard to imagine that he could be felled by her when she lay, a rag doll, on the table. When he cared so much and she so little. But it would all still be there, she was suddenly determined. There would be someone to remember. Selfish? Yes. She was.

"It's ok," she assured him. She would make it ok. She held his gaze calmly, and his straining ceased, black eyes latching onto her with sinister intensity. Their beds were wheeled together with a bounce.

"Get out. Hang on. Survive," he demanded. She smiled as the technician guided his bare hand towards hers. "Marie, I—"

The purple veins rose over both of them. She was used to the hot sting along her skin, the way it crept from their point of contact over her face and into his eyes. His bugged, and she felt his energy buzz into her. Just for a moment. Agitation, despair and darkness, angry determination. Let herself feed on it. She needed it.

Then she pushed. With superhuman effort, she gathered the dregs. Words flew to her in a chant– long-buried life - as the room swirled around her. _Do not go gentle into that good night. Suck the very pith and marrow._

"Wh--? Nn-no!" Logan forced out, back arching. His color was better. She saw the technician holding Logan drop to the floor, felt the disturbance as his soul swirled towards Logan, too.

She pushed. Had to keep pushing. Screwing herself to the sticking point. Tearing down the barricades, doors, windows yawning open, throwing herself into darkness, rushing onwards into him. Cycle spilling without end until she was spinning, complete, willing to fall. Pushing, expanding, draining, expelling. Had to get rid of it all.

There were those who fought and those who surrendered. Those who gave and those who sucked it all away. Logan would fight like she couldn't. When he sucked, it'd be the pith and marrow. Whereas she…would go gently…gently…it hardly mattered whether the night were good. So long as it was night.


End file.
